


Ashes in the Air, Ashes in My Mouth

by hufflepuffsquee



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Discussion of character death, Gen, Major character death - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6403507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepuffsquee/pseuds/hufflepuffsquee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Serena stands, ash falling into her hair, smoke stinging her lungs as she simply stares at Anders. She’s in shock, can barely move. Because now the Chantry was gone and the Grand Cleric dead.</p>
<p>'Murdered.' She tells herself. 'She was murdered. By Anders. By your friend.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes in the Air, Ashes in My Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> For a full profile on Serena Hawke, visit http://puffbadgersandbees.tumblr.com/DAWorldstate

Serena stands, ash falling into her hair, smoke stinging her lungs as she simply stares at Anders. She’s in shock, can barely move. Anders had been getting desperate, it had been noted by everyone, but she’d never expected this. She should have, she realizes. His tone, his nervous shifting when he had asked for her help with separating Anders and Justice… That hadn’t been his plan, and she’d known it. But she hadn’t thought about what his plan actually could have been, and she realizes now she should have. She should have questioned him, should have demanded he tell her. Because now the Chantry was gone and the Grand Cleric dead.

_Murdered._ She tells herself. _She was murdered. By Anders. By your friend._

The shock is tangible, hanging in the air like the magic Orsino and his apprentices had left behind moments ago. She knows she’s going to have to decide what to do, that he is her responsibility. There is no Viscount and she has just openly defied the Knight-Commander. As Champion, her friend’s life falls to her.

Sebastian is speaking, and it makes her come back to herself. He’s telling her to act, and she shakes her head to pull herself out of her thoughts.

Her eyes are still on Anders when she decides to call on her companions for their opinions.

“Th-” her voice catches and she tries again, ignoring that it cracks anyway. “Thoughts?”

“If I had been in that Chantry, would you be standing here waffling?!” Sebastian is angry, and she finds she can’t look at him. No, she wouldn’t, she already knows that. In truth… Her mind is made up, but she doesn’t want to do this. She wants this to fall to anyone but her.

Merrill wants him to atone by fighting with them. Aveline says that there needs to be justice for this. Varric sounds… Tired. Almost heartbroken. Fenris tells her to give Anders what he wants.

Perhaps the worst part of this is how Anders is simply…. sitting there. He’s resigned, he’s quiet. It occurs to her that it’s likely he didn’t expect to survive this at all. She recalls that he had given Varric something of his, the way he’d been speaking lately. He’s been anticipating his own death for… Months. And he’s chosen to die at her hand. She’s almost angry, realizing that. He wants to die and wants to make her do it.

The anger builds as she stares at him, and she finds herself speaking without thinking:

“Go.” Her voice is hard, and he turns around to meet her glare, his own expression puzzled.

“What?”

“Get out of here. I do not ever want to see you in Kirkwall –or anywhere else- ever again.”

Anders doesn’t move, just stares at her with his brow furrowed. The moment is broken when Sebastian speaks again.

“If he lives, I will return to Starkhaven and bring such an army that there’ll be nothing left of Kirkwall for these maleficarum to rule!” He’s stepping forward, staring at her with a fury she’s never seen on his features before. It almost scares her, as much as anything could scare her any more. It’s not a fear for herself, but for Kirkwall. She wonders for a moment what, precisely, that says about her. Perhaps she’s more like Anders just now than she thinks she is.

She stares him down, chest aching.

“You would destroy a city –my city- for one man?” She asks, voice tight. She isn’t certain what her expression is, but it feels like she’s absolutely begging. Pleading with him not to make her do this.

“So you will excuse this murderer? Serena, he killed the Grand Cleric! Her and every other innocent soul in that Chantry. This going beyond what you want.”

She grits her teeth, nose wrinkling, because she knows he’s right. Still, she doesn’t move, she seems rooted to the spot, shaking.

“Serena.” A quiet voice brings her attention to Anders, who is looking at her in a way she feels she doesn’t deserve. He trusts her, and she can’t help but hate him a little more for that. He’s betrayed her in a way she never could have forced herself to imagine, he’s hurt them all, and he still holds her in the same regard. “It’s… Just do it. I don’t blame you.”

A laugh forces its way out of her, and it’s half a sob.

“No, and you shouldn’t.” She spits, finally letting some of that anger out. Better the anger than the sorrow. The sorrow of this would drown her, and there’s still so much more to do. She has to defend the city, the mages, her sister. “This… All of this rests on you, Anders. Their lives… There were innocent people there, Anders. People who weren’t even part of the Chantry. People who would have stood by you!”

She forces herself to stop, shaking her head. She moves to stand in front of him, expression softening.

“You could have trusted me with this. We could have found something else. Something better.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “This… There is no chance at peace, Serena. I had to do this.”

“You didn’t. You really, really didn’t.” She sighs and rubs her forehead. “Is there… Is there anything you’d have me do? After?”

His lips twitch at the corners and she hates how close they are. Were.

“No. Nothing. Thank you.”

She can hear the others getting restless, Sebastian especially. His mail knocks against his armor as he paces, letting out frustrated noises. She doesn’t blame him, but that hardly means she appreciates any of this.

She nods and moves to stand behind Anders, placing a hand on his shoulder. Her fingers thread through the feathers and she finds herself wishing she wasn’t wearing armor, just to be able to feel them. Maybe it would make this better somehow. She squeezes his shoulder, like she has many times before when he felt overwhelmed. She doesn’t relinquish that gentle grip as she pulls her knife, nor when she pushes it through the flesh of his back.

He doesn’t make a sound, there’s just a hitch of breath as he jumps at the sensation. She placed the blade carefully, and it slips between his ribs into his heart with little resistance. Warmth seeps through her glove and her stomach roils. In one motion, she releases his shoulder and removes the knife, stepping back.

When his body falls, Serena turns away from him. It occurs to her that someone will have to come back later. Someone will need to take care of her, and she knows it’s going to be her. It has to be her. She stifles a sob at the realization, doubling over for a moment. She hears Sebastian step forward and straightens, holding up a hand to stop him in his tracks.

“Serena-”

“Don’t.” She says, not looking at him. She loves him dearly, that has not gone away and she doesn’t want it to. That hardly means she wants to speak to him right now. He made this harder than it already was, and while he was right, that doesn’t mean she needed that from him. “Sebastian, Merrill, Fenris. With me. Let’s go.”

—-

Once again, Serena is standing stock still in the center of a destruction she would not have thought possible. She watches an obviously shaking Templar approach the remains of the Knight-Commander, the twisted statue that is left.

Quietly, Serena takes slow steps backward. She knows Bethany notices, but her sister doesn’t alert anyone. Serena turns, almost square into Sebastian, and it startles her. He opens his mouth to say something and her eyes prick at the corners at the mere thoughts of anything he might have to say to her. She shakes her head, blinks, pushes past him. It doesn’t surprise her that he doesn’t follow, and she’s glad of it.

The same man that ferried them over is still in his boat, obviously shaken. She ignores him as he asks what in all the Hells happened in there, just requests to be taken back to the mainland.

She’s silent and rock steady as she leaves the boat and makes her way up to Lowtown.

He’s right where she left him. On his side, still and quiet and somehow undisturbed. He could almost be asleep. She, in all her experience with death, has never seen a corpse that looked so near a sleeping figure as Anders did now, save the blood on his robes and soaked into the caked dirt beneath him.

The blood. The blood that’s dried and is stiffening the cloth of her glove. It’s long covered up by now, layers of Templar blood hiding it. But it’s still there. It’s still the base. It spread over the cloth, it seeped into it, it had warmed her hand and she felt as though it had stained her skin. It would need scrubbed off. Off of her hand, out of the glove, off of the metal. Sand would do it better than a brush, to ease it from the joints of her armor and even eradicate the traces from her skin.

Serena doesn’t realize that she’s nauseated until she’s doubled over, hands on her knees, stomach convulsing. She clenches her jaw, breathing through her nose. She can’t do this, not now, but she can’t stop thinking about his blood on her hand.

She retches again, her stomach emptying what pitiful content it holds with a sad splatter.

For a few long moments, she stays as she is, forcing herself to take slow breaths. When she finally feels more secure, she straightens up, looking around. Her eyes light upon the stalls of merchants, nearly all damaged from the fighting. She gathers splintered wood and anything she can find that could burn, piling it. When it’s done, she picks him up, stomach roiling again at how painfully heavy he is. How it’s obviously dead weight. She places him on the makeshift pyre before fumbling in the pockets at her waist for flint. The pyre lights easily, flames licking up splinters and the cloth of his robes and the feathers at his shoulders.

Serena can’t look away, so she watches the flames take him, a frown furrowing her brow. It likely won’t be enough, and she knows there isn’t anything that she can burn to make the flames hot enough to do what they must.

There’s a soft cough behind her and she closes her eyes, counts to three, and then turns around. Merrill. She seems impossibly small, toes wiggling against the earth and delicate fingers wringing.

“I thought… Well, I imagined you’d need a bit of help, so I-”

“Keep that hot enough to do what it must.” Serena says, finally turning away.

As she looks about, she sees Merrill take a few tiny steps forward and extend a hand. The flames grow brighter and she feels the heat at her cheek intensify. As much as she wanted to do this alone, she’s pleased Merrill can help.

Finally, she finds what she’s looking for: an intact pot large enough to hold his ashes and a bowl she can use to gather them up. She sets them near the pyre and returns her eyes to it, not able to see her friend through the licking orange flames.

“I’m… He’d have… We’ll be alright.” Merrill says, in a voice that’s straining to find optimism in a scenario –possibly an entire bloody world- where there simply isn’t any. She’s sat herself down, cross-legged and the staff that was once Marethari’s across her knees.

Serena makes no reply, but that doesn’t stop Merrill from trying every few moments, despite the silence she receives after every attempt.

“He wanted you to. It’s not your fault.”

It is. She hadn’t seen what he was doing. She hadn’t had the strength to tell him to leave and to stand against the army Sebastian brought. She hadn’t given him more help, hadn’t spoken to him enough, hadn’t done enough. She’d failed again.

“He’d be glad you stood with the mages, you know.”

It didn’t much matter how he’d feel about it. He’s dead at her hand. Her knife in his back, slipping between his ribs. His blood on her hand.

“Do you… Will you need anything? Can I do something, after. You know, around the manor?”

There will be nothing to do, nothing she’ll want to have help with just yet. If she’s ever ready to let Merrill in about this, she’ll let her know. But she doesn’t want to think about it, much less speak about it. Not even with Sebastian.

Especially not with Sebastian.

Merrill keeps interrupting the silence, and Serena keeps allowing it to cover them both again. It doesn’t bother her, exactly, that Merrill keeps trying to talk. She just can’t.

The fire finally dies and there’s nothing left of Anders’ form. All that identifies the ashes as his are the buckles from his robes, dull in the moonlight that remains.

“I’ll take care of him, Merrill.” Serena says, picking up the pot and bowl she’d found earlier. “Go home. Sleep. You need it.”

She doesn’t reply when Merrill asks her if she’s okay, and Serena eventually becomes aware that the slight form is no longer hovering near her. Once she’s gathered enough ashes to fill the pot, nearly all of them, she gathers it in her arms and leaves the rest to be blown or swept away by someone who won’t know or care what happened there.

It startles her how empty Hightown’s streets are, save for all of the dust and smoke and debris. The results of the blast have covered the whole of the upper city, there’s not a spot untouched in some way. There are footsteps through the dust marking the routes people have taken running to or from the Chantry. She avoids a route that would take her past it, opting instead to slip in the back door of her own manor.

“Serah Hawke!” Bodahn bustles up, expression alarmed, Orana over his shoulder. “We saw… Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Bodahn. I just need to take care of some things. Alone, please. Thank you.”

He gives her a level look for a long while before nodding and moving on again, but Orana stays.

“You look… It’s like after your mama…”

Serana sighs and closes her eyes tightly. No, with her mother she felt like she had allowed it. Now, she has not only allowed it, she’s done it herself.

“I’m… I need time, Orana. Get some rest, I’ll tell you if I need you.”

Finally, Orana nods and leaves her. She makes her way to the foyer, pot still in hand, and considers the mantle over the fire. Not there, she finally decides, that’s too familiar. That invites people to ask about it. That’s not something she can handle.

In the end, she places the pot on the bedside table in her mother’s room. It’s been untouched since her death, and Anders will be alright here until Serena can find him somewhere to rest.

She moves to the kitchen, grateful there’s still plenty of water in the barrel next to the door. She dips one of their larger cooking pots into it and puts it over the fire. Then, she strips, laying out the messiest pieces of her armor on the table. Her container of scrubbing sand is fetched from its normal place.

In the dark of night, in only her smallclothes, Serena cleans her armor. She does it quickly, efficiently, distantly. She doesn’t feel herself, she barely feels real. The armor is left to dry near the kitchen fire. When she retreats back to the foyer, it’s to find Sebastian by the fireplace there, staring at the barely-glowing coals.

He turns when he hears her, mouth open to speak, but he closes it as he sees her. It’s nothing to do with her smalls, he’s seen her in this and less before (the words ‘damn my vows’ had fallen from his lips months ago), it’s everything to do with how she’s looking at him.

“I… Serena…” He starts, but she stops him.

“Stay here in the spare room. You need somewhere. If you have somewhere else, then you’re free go there. But I can’t… We’re not talking about this yet. I can’t.”

Serena moves past him, and so far as she can tell he intends to stay. Reaching her room, she unceremoniously dumps her armor into the closet, where it lands in a heap on the floor of it. She collapses onto the bed and bundles herself into sheets that smell like Sebastian. Ignoring the scent as best she can, she hopes that the Maker is merciful enough to at least give her a dreamless night.


End file.
